


stench of death

by theredhoodie



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/F, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 23:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18292742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: A musing madwife ficlet of a little something (that won’t be happening but yolo) between 2x03 and 2x04.





	stench of death

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this dialogue at like midnight and i just had to formulate it into a little scene so here you go.

He wakes up to someone standing over him, blocking the sun.

The sun? Shit. He squeezes his eyes shut and groans, feeling another night of sleeping on unwelcome surfaces in all of his bones.

“Get up,” says a voice he knows.

He cracks open an eye but still just sees the silhouette of a person. “Or you’ll what?” he croaks out, rubbing a dusty hand over his face. He wouldn’t use the word  _delighted_  at the fact that Wednesday hadn’t done away with her, but he wasn’t completely unhappy that she was still alive-ish.

With what he can only guess is an eyeroll, she grabs him by his jacket and hauls him to his feet with no effort on his part and she shoves him a bit down the road. He catches himself before he trips and feels around in his pockets for his lighter.

“You look better,” he says, only once his cigarette’s lit. And she certainly looks less dead than the last time he saw her. Dead eyes are brown again, even her skin looks less garish.

“Wednesday wasn’t completely full of shit,” Laura says, though the anger in her words tell him that her trip with the All-Father wasn’t all picnics and sunny days. She crosses her arms tightly and squints up at him. “What the fuck happened to you?”

He lets out a puff of air and smoke. “You don’t care,” he says instead of telling her about his string of bad luck.

“You know what, I’ve had it with people telling me what I feel.” She turns and starts walking down the street.

He waits until she’s a blur on the horizon before he follows, quickly gaining on her. “Argus couldn’t of been that big a fraud if you’re no longer falling to bits.”

He must have touched a nerve because she glares at him. Or perhaps that was just her default setting. “It’s not permanent,” she says.

“Of course not.”

She clenches her tiny hands into fists. ”You! Argh! Fuck! You drive me fucking crazy!”

"You're no bucket of laughs either there, dead wife."

"Fuck off.”

"I'm trying! But you run off with my luck and that, dead wife, lends itself to the universe giving me the worst fucking day ever and I'd rather not."

"You think I care if you have a bad day? I'm dead!"

"That excuse is not gonna last you that much longer.” He kind of wants to know what happened with Wednesday and Argus, but he also doesn’t. Wednesday used whoever he wanted in whatever way best suited him. Laura knew that and chose to go with him anyway and that still stung a bit. 

He wasn’t about to play shoulder-to-cry-on to a dead girl who tossed him aside for that old bag of bones and deceit.

“You’re right. Which is why New Orleans is probably my only shot to  _be_  alive again.”

“As I said.”

“Shut up.”

They walk along the shoulder in silence and cars pass them by without stopping.

“Seriously,” Laura says finally. “What happened to you? You look like absolute shit.”

A sarcastic smile graces his face. “Thanks. Mauled by dog. Boat on fire. Jesus freaks.”

“What?”

“I do not anticipate living much longer unless I have my coin nearby.” He’s serious, but he can tell by the way she narrows her eyes in question that she isn’t so sure.

“ _Okay_ ,” she says slowly, shaking her head. “I mean, if this works, this Baron in New Orleans, then you’ll get your coin back and that’s all you want right?”

That is far from true. It’s just a by-product of what he wants, what he’s been trying to do here. It was fine if that’s what she thought of him because she was dead by his hand and his journey through to some kind of atonement for what he’d done was his alone and had nothing to do with there being an  _after_  once she was living again.

Because he fucked up and he so often sees her dead on the road at his feet when he’s not paying attention, the image slipping into his mind unbidden.

“Right,” he says simply, placing another cigarette in his mouth and spotting a couple cars up ahead. “C’mon, we need a car if we’re gonna make it to New Orleans before nightfall.”

She shrugs and trudges along after him in the grassy ditch, a walking, talking reminder of his guilt.


End file.
